Mmm...nachos

Well, the Olympics are almost finished, and I think I'm ready for it. While it has been fun watching the U.S. winning big (Michael Phelps), losing big (4x100m relays, men and women), it has been pretty frustrating. The other day, my roommates and I woke up early (8:15am) to watch the men's basketball game., only to find out that it didn't start until 10:15am because of a stupid tape delay. 8:15 would have been the live feed (we're fourteen hours behind Beijing time, right?), but no...NBC tapes the live feed on the east coast and feeds it to us either an hour or two later (it varies, depending on the event). And today, the women's volleyball game was supposed to be on this morning. I even woke up at 9:00am on a Saturday just to watch it....it is now 2:30pm and it still hasn't come on. Every commercial break says, "And coming up next we will have the women's volleyball game, as well as rowing, rhythmic gymnastics, and boxing..." And no, of course they don't show the game....they start with the boxing. But wait!--there are all the divisions in boxing: flyweight, featherweight, etc. etc. Even though I'm studying film, it's hard to watch that much TV in a single sitting, so I've been doing some work, reading, preparing lesson plans, and then checking the broadcast every fifteen minutes or so. lame...........

And apparently my grandpa was friends with the guy who invented nachos. You can read my cousin's blog about it here.

Olympic Spirit, part 2

So last night I was eating at Applebee's with my family. It was a farewell thing for my sister, who starts grad school at Florida State this semester. I was sitting right underneath a TV watching the men's beach volleyball team beat Switzerland. A few minutes later, Michael Phelps was racing in the 100m butterfly. After the first 50 meters, Phelps was in seventh place (out of eight swimmers), more than half a second behind the leader. With about 25 meters left to go, I started hearing the following: "Dig...dig...dig, baby. Dig! DIG! DIG!!!" As if by magic, Phelps responded, touching the wall one hundredth of a second faster than Milorad Cavic, making it his seventh gold medal of these Olympics. The restaurant exploded with cheers and applause. Dozens of people sat entranced as the replay was shown again and again, every angle confirming that Phelps indeed finished first. Random people called out to other random people:"What was his time?" "Was that another world record?" "How did he do that?" All in all, it's just another reason I'm proud to be an American. There are about 53 other reasons, but that's too many to list (54 is the total medal count, in case you're wondering what the other 53 are).


And this is a picture of my cousins at the Breaking Dawn midnight sale. Some of them were asking about it, so here it is.

Olympic Spirit

So after watching the Opening Ceremonies, I couldn't fall asleep--I was too excited to watch the Olympic games. I stayed up watching badminton and fencing, and at 3:00am I watched the U.S. Women's Soccer team beat Japan. All day Saturday I was channel hopping between three stations to get the maximum coverage possible (commercial breaks meant it was time to switch stations...never a dull moment). But this morning, hearing about the spectacular finish in the 4x100m freestyle relay, has gotten me so pumped for the rest of the Olympics. If you haven't heard about it yet, you have to go here. You'll probably have to download Microsoft's Silverlight, but it's quick and easy, and the video is so worth it. Trust me. In the last stretch of the relay, the Americans are behind by a body length. And then here comes Lezak...Listen to the announcers screaming near the end of the race. It's pretty amazing. I've watched the video a good six or seven times today already. NBC just posted it this morning, and it already has 1.2 million hits.


And yes, our intramural softball team won the championship. It was kind of anti-climactic though, because the other team forfeited the championship game. Apparently they had a co-ed game at the same time, and they had a better chance of winning that game (the co-ed team was still undefeated in double elimination, but the men's team had already lost once to us). But it's okay--we got t-shirts and bragging rights for the next year, so hey, I'm happy.

Breaking Dawn at midnight?

Well, quite a bit has happened in the past little while. Just to sum up a little: I turned 24, I read "The Outcasts of 19 Schuyler Place," I went to the midnight sale of Breaking Dawn (even though I haven't read any of the Twilight series), I saw The Dark Knight (twice), my grandfather passed away, and our intramural softball team is in the semifinals with a good chance of winning the championship (it's double elimination, and we haven't lost a tournament game yet.

My birthday was a lot of fun. I went and played sand volleyball in the morning, watched a couple episodes of Psych, and then we got a big group to go get some frozen custard. As for the midnight sale of Breaking Dawn, I was there to help my mom with the new bookstore. It was their first midnight sale, and they (meaning my mom mostly) were pretty nervous. So I was there to help move boxes, take pictures, and all that. My dad made some stickers that said, "Oh Edward, you can bite my neck," for all of the girls that came to the sale. He had wanted to make a big banner that said "Edward is gay!" but my mom wouldn't let him.

Anyway, I ended up taking over a hundred pictures of the event. This activity had all the girls making a wedding dress out of toilet paper.


Something else that I thought was pretty interesting--there was a band playing two stores down (another bookstore was also doing a midnight sale), and I happened to get a couple pictures of them playing. Afterward, the lead member wanted to pay me for the pictures...he ended up giving me a CD. His name is Sam Payne, so you can check out his website if you want. I haven't had a chance to listen to his CD yet, but he was on Glenn Beck's show a little while ago.
This picture isn't actually Sam, but a violin player that was doing backup work. I just thought it was a cool picture (I really like the new lens I got for my birthday...even in low light, I can still take good pictures without using the flash). I didn't want to use the flash, since I was only about three feet away. The band didn't even realize I was there though, because I was behind them and all of their sound equipment.

And just now, I got back from watching Iron Man at the dollar theater. It was still a fun movie, even the second time around. Someone even pointed out a little "easter egg" where you can see Captain America's shield in the background in Tony Stark's lab. Totally nerdy, but hey, it was fun.

I'll try and post some more tomorrow, after we play our softball game--